Last night on Chelsea Lately, Kirsten Dunst stopped by to talk about her new movie Bachelorette, in which she plays a character she describes as “the bitch.” As with many interviews I’ve seen Chelsea do, they managed to touch on topics larger than the fluffy anecdotes you usually see on late night talk shows, while still remaining funny.

First Kirsten talked about how “it’s fun playing the bitch” and Chelsea responded “I’m kind of just like that in real life.” Kirsten elaborated:

“I have to be nice to everyone, but when you’re waking up so early in the morning…now I can just use all that animosity towards 4:30am wake up calls to just say ‘fuck you’ to everybody. It’s amazing.”

Takeaway: actresses (note that I’m using the gendered version of the word instead of the gender-neutral “actors” here) have to be incredibly nice to everyone all the time or they get a reputation as “divas” or “bitches.” Comedians, on the other hand, can say whatever they like so long as it’s funny.

And the gender politics convo went on!

Kirsten: “Only female writers usually write these kinds of girls.”

Chelsea: “When male writers write them you’re married to some overweight guy like According To Jim…and you’re like, oh really?”

They then discussed the absurdity of eating sushi at a strip club before moving onto their thoughts on Kirsten’s well-cheekboned co-star James Marsden. Again, Kirsten shied away from making a joke at her buddy’s expense (something a dude would not think twice about), while Chelsea just went for it.

I’m not saying I think actresses should be rude harpies, but doesn’t it seem a little bit stifling that they have to be so relentlessly sunny? There were probably like five funny jokes that occurred to Kirsten over the course of that interview that she didn’t say out loud because they were too mean. Maybe if we didn’t expect absolute perfection from actresses at all times, they’d reveal themselves to be more interesting than those fawning, generic, celebrity profiles make them out to be. Comedians are allowed to try acting, so why shouldn’t actresses be allowed to try being funny? We might be surprised by what they bust out with.